


Necessary Confrontation, Necessary Deceit

by Scrawlers



Series: With Friends Like These [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Gen, Papa Wolf Sycamore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 16:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11256660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: Professor Sycamore confronts Lysandre about Alan's disappearance and employment.





	Necessary Confrontation, Necessary Deceit

As two agents of Team Flare led Champion Stone and Manon to a small room where she could stay while her chespin recuperated (“recuperated” might have been a better way to put it, but Lysandre had always felt that air quotes were juvenile), Augustine turned back to Lysandre, his gaze hard. It was, Lysandre thought, possibly the fiercest he had ever looked, though Lysandre couldn’t say that his anger was much more intimidating than Alan’s. If Alan was as intimidating as an angry charmander, then Augustine was a rockruff trying to pass himself off as a lycanroc.

“Come with me,” Lysandre said, and he gestured for Augustine to follow him down the hall, in the opposite direction from where the Flare agents had led Champion Stone and Manon. “We can talk along the way. What did you want to discuss?”

As he had when Lysandre had first found him standing in the corridor and asked him what he was doing there, Augustine opened his mouth to reply, took a breath instead, and closed it for a moment before responding. He was choosing his words carefully, and that Lysandre could appreciate. Only fools plowed ahead without thinking the matter through, and despite what his taste in fashion suggested, Augustine had never been a fool.

“I thought I made that clear a few moments ago. I want to talk about Alan. Where is he?”

Augustine had made that clear, having followed ‘I need to speak with you’ with ‘Where is Alan?’, but Lysandre had sidestepped the question with Manon’s unwitting assistance (for sobbing ten-year-olds were difficult for most people to ignore, much less Augustine Sycamore), and had hoped that feigning ignorance would cause Augustine to back down or avoid the topic himself. But luck, it seemed, had decided not to favor him in this instance, and so he pretended to consider the question a moment before he answered.

“I’m not certain. He may be in the medical bay, given that his charizard no doubt needs rest after the gauntlet they just ran. He may be gathering supplies for his journey. He might have already left. I lost track of him after I was informed of the situation surrounding Manon’s chespin. He could be anywhere, really.”

“But he’s here.” It wasn’t a question, and Lysandre glanced to his right to see that Augustine had not only fallen into pace beside him, but that he was staring up at him with an unwavering stare. “You may not know exactly where he is, but you have a general idea.”

“He may not be here,” Lysandre said. “He might have already left.”

“Even if he has, you know how to contact him. You’ve always known how to contact him.”

Once again, Augustine wasn’t asking, and now Lysandre could hear a faint tremble in his voice. By this point they had reached Lysandre’s office, yet although Lysandre opened the door and gestured for Augustine to enter, Augustine stopped just outside the entrance, his fingers curled into fists. Lysandre frowned, as much at the pose Augustine struck as his defiance. Lysandre knew that Augustine and Alan weren’t actually related, but right then the resemblance was uncanny.

“What is it, specifically, that you want?” Lysandre asked.

“I want to know why you lied,” Augustine said, and this time his response was immediate, sharp, as if it had been burning on his tongue. “You knew where he was and what he was doing this entire time, and yet you—”

“I never lied to you,” Lysandre interrupted.

Augustine huffed a laugh of disbelief. “That, itself, is a lie.”

“No, it isn’t.” A thread of annoyance coiled through him, though Lysandre kept his voice even. “You never asked if I knew where Alan was, or if I had heard from him, and as such I never told you that I didn’t. I never lied to you.”

“Lies by omission are still lies, Lysandre. Surely you’re smart enough to realize that. I know you are.”

Lysandre glanced over Augustine’s head. The corridor was empty save for the two of them, but Lysandre hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t know specifically where Alan was. The last thing he needed was for Alan to wander into the hallway with Augustine standing right there. He gestured into his office.

“Semantics aside, it’s poor decorum to argue in the middle of a hallway. Come into my office if you wish to continue this conversation.”

Augustine glared at him for a moment more, yet then turned and entered the office. Lysandre allowed himself a small smirk at Augustine’s back as he stepped in and shut the door behind him. The moment the door snapped shut, Augustine turned back to face him, and Lysandre made sure his smirk was gone the moment their eyes met.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Augustine demanded. “You knew how worried I was about him. You’ve known since he first went missing—though he was never truly missing, was he? He was working for you. You brought him on as your employee, and yet you never told me. Despite all the times I brought him up, you never said a word. Why?”

“I didn’t believe it was relevant,” Lysandre said, and once again Augustine’s expression was aghast. “You never asked, and I tend not to go into my employee roster with people not affiliated with Fleur-De-Lis Laboratories.” 

“Your employee—? Lysandre,” Augustine laughed incredulously, “he isn’t just another employee on your roster, he’s my _son_ —”

“He isn’t your son.”

“Yes, he is,” Augustine snapped, and if he had looked fierce before, that was nothing compared to how he looked now. Lysandre was almost impressed. “He is in all the ways that matter, and you _know_ that. You had no right to keep this from me. You _have_ no right to do any of the things you’ve done.”

Lysandre took a deep breath to give himself a moment to think, and crossed his arms. “Even if you do consider him to be your son,” he said slowly, “that doesn’t give _you_ the right to be informed about every aspect of his life. Alan’s business is his own, and I did not—nor do I—need your permission to employ him here.”

“This isn’t about whether or not you needed permission, and you know that as well, so stop deflecting.”

“I’m not deflecting. The matter we’re discussing is whether I was wrong in not telling you about Alan’s service here, and my point is that I wasn’t. You never asked, and even if you had, it isn’t up to me to keep you informed of Alan’s business. He’s capable of making his own decisions—”

“He’s a teenage boy—”

“He’s an experienced trainer, and as such there is nothing wrong with me employing him,” Lysandre said, though in truth Alan hadn’t been _that_ experienced when Lysandre had brought him on. He hadn’t been a rookie, to be sure—he had given Lysandre’s Flare agents more than enough of a hard time to prove that much—but compared to Lysandre, he practically had been. Nonetheless, it was nothing that rigorous training for both him and his then-charmeleon hadn’t been able to fix, and if the mega evolution gauntlet he had just conquered was anything to go by, he was more than experienced now. If anything, perhaps Alan’s charizard was a little _too_ strong for Lysandre’s liking.

“There’s something wrong when he drops out of contact for two years, _coincidentally_ right around the time he must have entered your service,” Augustine said. “There’s something wrong when he was only thirteen when you employed him, he’s only fifteen now, and yet he’s apparently risking his life on a regular basis. Steven Stone told me what happened in Hoenn. He told me that Alan nearly died.”

Ah, and there it was—the missing link for how Augustine had found out in the first place. Lysandre cursed himself for not seeing it coming, though in fairness to himself he didn’t know how he could have. He hadn’t pegged Champion Stone as a gossip (although, he thought, perhaps he should have—it always _was_ the pretty ones, after all), and even if he had, he wasn’t aware that Augustine knew him. There was no way he could have known that Champion Stone would call Augustine the moment he was out of Lysandre’s sight, but he still couldn’t help but want to kick himself for not nipping this problem in the bud when he had the chance.

“He didn’t nearly die,” Lysandre said. “He was an asset in—”

“How would you know? According to Steven, you weren’t there, and you never asked after his condition once he was injured,” Augustine said, and Lysandre scowled at his interruption. “Speaking of injuries, Steven and Manon also told me that he injured his shoulder prior to the battle that nearly killed him. How is his shoulder doing? Did he have it treated?”

“I didn’t think it necessary,” Lysandre said, and Augustine glowered at him. “He said he was fine.”

“He’s _fifteen_ , Lysandre. You are an adult. When he sustains an injury like that, you shouldn’t take his word for it.”

“So I should regard him as a liar? I should disrespect his thoughts and feelings in favor of what I believe is best?”

“That isn’t what I’m saying. Don’t twist my words.”

“Then don’t condescend to me about how I treat my subordinates.”

“He _isn’t_ your—!” Augustine began hotly, but he cut himself off mid-sentence, and took a deep breath through his nose. It truly was the most angry Lysandre had ever seen him, and he had to admit; now that Augustine had been riled up, he did look a bit more lycanroc than rockruff at the moment. Just a bit. “You have a way to page the employees who work here, don’t you? Call him. I want to see him, and I want to make sure his shoulder is properly taken care of.”

“His shoulder is fine.”

Augustine glared at him. “We’ll see. Call him.”

“With due respect, Augustine, I don’t follow orders from anyone,” Lysandre said, and he returned Augustine’s glare in kind. “Not even you.”

“With due respect, _Lysandre_ , I am not in the mood to play,” Augustine said. “Forgive me for not framing my request as politely as I could have, but my son is injured, and I haven’t spoken to him for two years. I need to see him, and you know how to contact him. Considering you have lied to me about his whereabouts and activities for the past two years, and actively led me to believe he was _missing_ , I believe you owe it to me to summon him here so that I can see for myself that he is all right. So, if you would be so kind, call him, _please_.”

Augustine’s voice was taut and brittle; despite his polite language, his request wasn’t much of a _request_ at all. But Lysandre could see that he wasn’t about to back down, and there were no real deflections left open for him any longer. With a sigh, Lysandre strode over to his desk and picked up the receiver of his desk phone before he punched in Malva’s extension.

It only took two rings for her to answer.  _“What can I help you with?”_

“Professor Sycamore would like to speak with Alan,” Lysandre said, and he met Augustine’s eyes as he said it. “Send him to my office.”

On the other end of the line, Malva laughed, and Lysandre was glad he had the foresight to call her from the desk phone rather than his Holo Caster. No matter how intensely Augustine glared at him, there was no way he would be able to hear her response.

 _“Well now, this_ is _an interesting turn of events. Whatever are you going to do?”_

“I see,” Lysandre said. “Thank you for letting me know.”

 _“So that’s how you’re going to play it? Pity. It’s so boring. Well.”_ Malva sighed.  _“I suppose there’s always time for more interesting developments later.”_

Lysandre hung up the phone.

“Well?” Augustine prompted.

“He already left,” Lysandre said. “It isn’t surprising. He’s very dedicated to his work—incredibly determined to see it through. It’s one of his finer qualities.”

“He’s injured, and his shoulder isn’t going to treat itself,” Augustine said instead. Lysandre fought the urge to roll his eyes. “You have a way to call him on the road, don’t you?”

“His shoulder clearly isn’t bothering him if he has decided to keep traveling,” Lysandre said. “He’s fine, Augustine. Isn’t that what you always believed? You weren’t wrong.”

“Yes, I very clearly was. Do you or do you not have a way to contact him?”

“Whether I do or not doesn’t matter. I can assure you that his charizard has already taken him far enough away by now that he won’t be able to double back tonight,” Lysandre said. Augustine opened his mouth to reply, and Lysandre cut across him. “I promise you that he is fine. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“You already have,” Augustine said.

“We can stand here arguing semantics all night, but it won’t do either of us any good,” Lysandre said. “But Alan’s work will. He is working toward a greater purpose, working to use the very same mega evolution energy that you have dedicated your life to researching in order to make the world a better place. You should be proud, Augustine. What he’s doing is for the best.”

“That isn’t how Steven made it sound,” Augustine said.

“No? Well, I suppose that isn’t surprising,” Lysandre said. “But with all due respect to Champion Stone, I believe I have a better idea of what we’re seeking to accomplish—and what Alan is assisting us with accomplishing—than he does. I can assure you, when we are finished, the world will truly be a more beautiful place.” Lysandre paused, and then affected a smile. “Surely the years of friendship between us must put some merit behind my words for you.”

Augustine considered him for a long moment. “Out of respect for the years of friendship between us, and out of concern for Alan, I want to believe you,” he said. “But in all honesty, Lysandre, in light of all the lies, I’m not so sure that I can.”


End file.
